who'll be moderating this presidential debate. hillary clinton and donald trump -- are ready to take center it's time to vote for america and america first. >> america's destiny is ours to choose. >> we will make america safe again. >> we join together to get rid of the threats we face. >> jobs, jobs, jobs. >> i will be a president for all americans. >> from nbc news. decision 2016. the first presidential debate. live from hofstra university in hempstead, new york. here now, savannah guthrie and chuck todd. >> and good evening, everybody. nice to have you with us. chuck, after all the hype, all the prep, all the predebate ga

gamesmanship from both campaigns this is it, we're literally minutes way from the start of the first and all important presidential debate on a stage behind us. we've already seen the candidates tonight hillary clinton and donald trump arriving here a bit earlier this evening. they're waiting backstage. and chuck, we've had a moment tonight. >> yeah. >> president bill clinton is in the house. and met mrs. melania trump. they just shared that handshake. we've got the whole families assembled here. >> we do. and i think one thing we ought to remember as big of personalities that they are, we know this is going to be a clash of big personalities, this is also a clash of two competing visions of america. hillary clinton embracing the many cultural changes, diversity, acceleration of globalization that's happening. donald trump embracing a vision that says whoa, let's slow down, let's slow things down, let's look inward a little bit. let's not let that get lost tonight. >> let's bring in our colleague tom brokaw, obviously somebody who's watched a lot of debates. doesn't this feel like there's something special about this one, if nothing else because they think

maybe 100 million people could be watching. >> never seen one quite like this in part because the 100 million people, a lot are trying to make up their minds. this is an important debate. add to the television viewership, social media going on, tweeting that is going on, texting that is going on, the streaming that is going on. this is the biggest electronic event in american history to say nothing of american presidential politics. >> the stakes are so high with the polls tight as we've seen as recently as today. let's go to andrea mitchell, excuse me, haley jackson is in the spinroom for us. good evening. >> hi, savannah. here media and surrogates are ready for what happens after the debate. before then, here's donald trump's biggest test. can he prove he has the temperment to be commander in chief? it's one of his biggest negatives to voters. too many insults he could come off as a bully, too few specifics and could seem unprepared. savannah? >> hallie jackson, thank you. >> let's go to andrea mitchell covering the hillary clinton campaign. what's hillary clinton's goal tonight, andrea? >> her need is to relate to people especially millennial

voters and very frankly one of her top aides said to me we're glad we have donald trump to debate against because he's the draw, he's drawing 100 million people. and that's the kind of crowd hillary clinton has not been able to attract. she now has to sell herself tonight and bill clinton is here. he never attended kn eed any of the primary debates. >> thank you, andrea. >> we're 230 seconabout 30 seconds away from the debate. the stakes are very high. as i mentioned earlier, the polls are ex-freedomly tight. >> they are. i do think the audience is very fluid. we have a bunch of people who are either none of the above or undecided. i think the polls will move tonight. >> the multibillionaire, former first lady, secretary of state, u.s. senator about to debate. we'll let lester holt take it away. >> good evening from hofstra university in hempstead, new york, i'm lester holt. anchor of "nbc nightly news." i want to welcome you to the first presidential debate. the participants tonight are donald trump and hillary clinton. this debate is

sponsored by the commission on presidential debates. a nonpartisan, non-profit organization. the commission drafted tonight's format and the rules have been agreed to by the campaigns. the 90 minute debate is divided into 6 segments each 15 minutes long. we'll explore three topic areas tonight, achieving prosperity, america's direction, and securing america. at the start of each segment, i will ask the same leadoff question to both candidates and they will each have up to two minutes to respond. from that point, until the end of the segment, we'll have an open discussion. the questions are mine and have not been shared with the commission of the campaigns. the audience here in the room has agreed to remain silent so that we can focus on what the candidates are saying. i will invite you to applaud, however, at this moment as we welcome the candidates, democratic nominee for president of the united states, hillary clinton. and republican nominee for president of the united states, donald j. trump.

>> hey, how are you? >> good luck to you. >> good to see you. thank you. >> good to see you. >> well, i don't expect us to cover all the issues of this campaign tonight, but i remind everyone there are two more presidential debates scheduled. we are going to focus on many of the issues that voters tell us are most important and we're going to press for specifics. i am honored to have this role, but this evening belongs to the candidates, and just as important to the american people. candidates, we look forward to hearing you articulate policies and positions as well as your visions and your values. so, let's begin. we're calling this opening segment achieving prosperity and central to that is jobs.

there are two economic realities in america today. there's been a record six straight years of job growth and new census numbers show incomes have increased at a record rate after years of stagnation. however, income inequality remains significant and nearly half of americans are living paycheck to paycheck. beginning with you, secretary clinton, why are you a better choice than your opponent to create the kinds of jobs that will put more money into the pockets of american workers? >> well, thank you, lester, and thanks to hofstra for hosting us. the central question in this election is really what kind of country we want to be and what kind of future we'll build together. today is my granddaughter's second birthday so i think about this a lot. first, we have to build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top. that means we need new jobs, good jobs, with rising incomes. i want us to invest in you. i want us to invest in your future. that means jobs and

infrastructure and advanced manufacturing. innovation and technology. clean renewable energy and small business because most of the new jobs will come from small business. we also have to make the economy fairer. that starts with raising the national minimum wage and also guarantee finally equal pay for women's work. i also want to see more companies do profit sharing. if you help create the profits, you should be able to share in them, not just the executives at the top. and i want us to do more to support people who are struggling to balance family and work. i've heard from so many of you about the difficult choices you face and the stresses that you're under. so let's have paid family leave. earned sick days. let's be sure we have affordable childcare and debt-free college. how are we going to do it? we're going to do it by having the wealthy pay their fair share

and close the corporate loopholes. finally we tonight are on the stage together, donald trump and i. donald, it's good to be with you. we're going to have a debate where we are talking about the important issues facing our country. you have to judge us. who can shoulder the immense, awesome responsibilities of the presidency? who can put into action the plans that will make your life better? i hope that i will be able to earn your vote on november 8th. >> secretary clinton, thank you. mr. trump, the same question to you. it's about putting money, more money into the pockets of american workers. you have up to two minutes. >> thank you, lester. our jobs are fleeing the country. they're going to mexico, they're going to many other countries. you look at what china is doing to our country in terms of making our product. they're devaluing their currency and there's nobody in our government to fight them and we have a very good fight and we have a winning fight because they're using

our country as a piggy bank to rebuild china and many other countries are doing the same thing. so we're losing our good jobs. so many of them. when you look at what's happening in mexico, a friend of mine who builds plants said it's the eighth wonder of the world, they're building some of the biggest plants anywhere in the world, some of the most sophisticated, some of the best plants. with the united states, as you said, not so much. so, ford is leaving, you see that. their small cardi division leaving. thousands of jobs leaving michigan, leaving ohio. they're all leaving. we can't allow it to happen anymore. as far as childcare is concerned and so many other things i think hillary and i agree on that. we probably disagree a little bit as to numbers and amounts, and what we're going to do, but perhaps we'll be talking about that later. but we have to stop our jobs from being stolen from us. we have to stop our companies from leaving the united states and with it, firing all of

the people. all you have to do is take a look at carrier air-conditioning in indianapolis. they fired 1,400 people. they're going to mexico. so many hundreds and hundreds of companies are doing this. we cannot let it happen. under my plan, i'll be reducing taxes tremendously from 35% to 15% for companies, small and big businesses. that's going to be a job creator like we haven't seen since ronald reagan. it's going to be a beautiful thing to watch. companies will come. they will build. they will expand. new companies will start. and i look very, very much forward to doing it. we have to renegotiate our trade deals and we have to stop these countries from stealing our companies and our jobs. >> secretary clinton, would you like to respond? >> well, i think that trade is an important issue. of course, we have 5% of the world's population. we have to trade with the other 95%. and we need to have smart, fair trade

deals. we also, though, need to have a tax system that rewards work and not just financial transactions. and the kind of plan that donald has put forth would be trickle-down economics all over again, in fact, it would be the most extreme version, the biggest tax cuts for the top percents of the people in this country than we've ever had. i call it trumped up trickle down because that's exactly what it would be. that is not how we grow the economy. we just have a different view about what's best for growing the economy. how we make investments that will actually produce jobs and rising incomes. i think we come at it from somewhat different perspectives. i understand that. you know, donald was very fortunate in his life and that's all to his benefit. he started his business with $14 million, borrowed from his father, and he really believes that the more you help wealthy people, the better off we'll be

and that everything will work out from there. i don't buy that. i have a different experience. my father was a small businessman. he worked really hard. he printed drapery fabrics on long tables where he pulled out those fabrics and he went down with a silk screen and dumped the paint in and took the squeegee and kept going. what i believe, the more we can do for the middle class, the more we can invest in you, your education, your skills, your future, the better we will be off and the better we'll grow. that's the kind of economy i want us to see again. >> let me follow-up with mr. trump if i can. you talked about creating 25 million jobs and promised to bring back millions of jobs for americans. how are you going to bring back the industries that have left this country for cheaper labor overseas? how specifically are you going to tell american manufacturers that you have to come back? >> well, for one thing, and before we start on that, my father gave me a very small loan in 1975 and i built it into a company that's worth many, many billions of dollars with some of

the greatest assets in the world. and i say that only because that's the kind of thinking that our country needs. our country is in deep trouble. we don't know what we're doing when it comes to deevaluations and all of these countries all over the world, especially china. they're the best. the best ever at it. what they're doing to us is a very, very sad thing. so we have to do that. we have to renegotiate our trade deals. and lester, they're taking our jobs. they're giving ince incenti incentives. they're doing things, frankly, we don't do. let me give you the example of mexico. they have a vat tax. we're on a different system. when we sell into mexico, there's a tax. when they sell in, automatic 16% approximately. when they sell into us, there's no tax. it's a defective agreement. it's been defective for a long time. many years. but the politicians haven't done anything about it. now, in all fairness to secretary clinton, yes, is that okay? good. i want you to be very happy. it's very important to me. but in all fairness to

secretary clinton, when she started talking about this, it was really very recently. she's been doing this for 30 years. and why hasn't she made the agreements better? the nafta agreement is defective. just because of the tax and many other reasons, but just because of the -- >> let me interrupt just a moment. >> secretary clinton and others, politicians, should have been doing this for years. not right now because of the fact that we've created a movement. they should have been doing this for years. what's happened to our jobs and our country and our economy, generally, is, look, we owe $20 trillion. we cannot do it any longer, lester. >> back to the question, though, how do you bring back, specifically bring back jobs? american manufacturers. how do you make them bring the jobs back? >> well, the first thing you do is don't let the jobs leave. the companies have leaving. i could name -- i mean, there are thousands of them. they're leaving and they're leaving in bigger numbers than ever. and what you do is you say, fine, you want to go to mexico or some other country, good luck, we wish you a

lot of luck, but if you think you're going to make your air conditioners or your cars or your cookies or whatever you make and bring them into our country without a tax, you're wrong. and once you say you're going to have to tax them coming in, and our politicians never do this, because they have special interests and the special interests want those companies to leave because in many cases they own the companies. so what i'm saying is we can stop them from leaving. we have to stop them from leaving and that's a big, big factor. >> let me let secretary clinton get in here. >> well, let's stop for a second and remember where we were eight years ago. we had the worst financial crisis, the great recession, the worst since president 1930s. that was in large part because of tax policies that slashed taxes on the wealthy, failed to invest in the middle class, took their eyes off of wall street, and created a perfect storm. in fact, donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing

crisis. he said back in 2006, gee, i hope it does collapse because then i can go in and buy some and make some money. well, it did collapse. >> that's called business, by the way. >> 9 million people, 9 million people lost their jobs. 5 million people lost their homes and $13 trillion in family wealth was wiped out. now, we have come back from that abyss and it has not been easy. so we're now on the precipice of having a potentially much better economy, but the last thing we need to do is to go back to the policies that failed us in the first place. independent experts have looked at what i've proposed and looked at what donald's proposed and basically they've said this. that if his tax plan, which would blow up the debt by over $5 trillion and would, in some instances, disadvantage middle class families compared to the wealthy, were to go

into effect, we would lose 3.5 million jobs. and maybe have another recession. they've looked at my plans and they've said, okay, if we can do this, and i intend to get it done, we will have 10 million more new jobs because we will be making investments where we can grow the economy. take clean energy. some country is going to be the clean energy superpower of the 21st century. donald thinks that climate change is a hoaxe perpetrated by the chinese. i think it's real. >> i did not. >> science is real. >> i did not say that. >> and i think -- >> i do not say that. >> i think it's important that we grip this and deal with it both at home and abroad and here's what we can do. we can deploy a half a billion more solar panels. we can have enough clean energy to power every home. we can build a new modern electric grid. that's a lot of jobs. that's a lot of new economic activity. so i've tried to be very specific about what we can and should do and i am determined

that we're going to get the economy really moving again. building on the progress we've made over the last eight years but never going back to what got us in trouble in the first place. >> mr. trump? >> she talks about solar panels. we invested in a solar company, country, that was a disaster. they lost plenty of money on that one. now, look, i'm a great believer in all forms of energy, but we're putting a lot of people out of work. our energy policies are a disaster. our country is losing so much in terms of energy, in ternms of paying off our debt. you can't do what you're looking to do with $20 trillion in debt. the obama administration from the time they've come in is over 230 years' worth of debt and he's topped it. he's doubled it in a course of almost eight years. 7 1/2 years to be semi-exact. so i will tell you this. we have to do a much better job at keeping our jobs and we have to do a much better

job at giving companies incentive to build new companies or to expand because they're not doing it. all you have to do is look at michigan, look at ohio and look at all of these places where so many of their jobs and their companies are just leaving. they're gone. and hillary, i just ask you this, you've been doing this for 30 years. why are you just thinking about these solutions right now? for 30 years you've been doing it and now you're just starting to think of solutions. >> well, actually -- >> i will bring -- excuse any. i will bring back jobs. you can't bring back jobs. >> well, actually, i have thought about this quite a bit. >> yeah, for 30 years. >> i have -- well, not quite that long. i think my husband did a pretty good job in the 1990s. i think a lot about what worked and how -- >> he approved nast ed nafta, single worst trade deal approved in the country. >> incomes went up for everybody. manufacturing jobs went up also in the

1990s if we're going it look at the facts. when i was in the senate, i had a number of trade deals that came before me and i held them all to the same test. will they create jobs in america? will they raise incomes in america? and are they good for our national security? some of them i voted for. the biggest one, a multinational one known as cafta, i voted against and because i hold the same standards as i look at all of these trade deals. but let's not assume that trade is the only challenge we have in the economy. i think it is a part of it and i've said what i'm going to do. i'm going to have a special prosecutor. we're going to enforce the trade deals we have. and we're going to hold people accountable. when i was secretary of state, we actually increased american exports globally 30%. we increased them to china 50%. so i know how to really work to get new jobs and to get exports that help to create more new jobs. >> very quickly --

>> you haven't done it in 30 years or 26 years. >> i've been a senator, donald. >> you haven't done it. you haven't done it. >> i've been secretary of state. >> excuse me, your husband signed nafta, one of the worst things that ever happened to the manufacturing industry. >> that is your opinion. >> you go to new england, go to ohio, pennsylvania, you go to anywhere you want, secretary clinton, and you will see devastation where manufacturers down 30%, 40%, sometimes 50%. na n nafta is the worst trade deal signed anywhere, in this country. now you want to approve trans-pacific partnership. you were totally in favor of it then heard what i was saying how bad it is and said i can't win that debate. yuan if y you know if you did win, you would approve that and almost be as bad as nafta. nothing will top nanafa. >> that is not accurate. i was against it once it was finally negotiated. the terms were laid out. i wrote -- >> you called it the

gold standard. you kacalled it the gold standard of trade deals. said it was the finest deal you've ever seen. you heard what i said about it and you were against it. >> donald, i know you live in your own reality -- >> oh, yeah. >> -- that is not the facts. i did say, i hoped it would be a good deal. when it was negotiated -- >> not. >> -- which i was not responsible for, i concluded it wasn't. i wrote about that -- >> so is it president obama's fault? is it president obama's fault? >> before you even announced. look, there are -- >> secretary, is it president obama's fault? >> there are different -- >> because he's pushing it. >> there are different views about what's going for our country, our economy, and our leadership in the world. i think it's important to look at what we need to do to get the economy going again. that's why i said new jobs with rising incomes, investments. not in more tax cuts that would add $5 trillion to the debt. >> but you have no plan. >> educate -- oh, i do. >> secretary, you have no plan. >> i've written a book about it. it's called "stronger together." pick it up tomorrow. >> that's about all --

>> at a bookstore or at an airport near you. >> we're going to move to -- >> it's because i see this, when need to have strong growth, fair growth, sustained growth. we also have to look at how we help families balance the responsibilities at home and the responsibilities at business. so we have a very robust set of plans. and people have looked at both of our plans, have concluded that mine would create 10 million jobs and yours would lose us 3.5 million jobs and explode the debt -- >> you are going to approve one of the biggest tax cuts in history. you're going to approve whone of the biggest tax increases in history. you are going to drive business out. your regulations are a disaster. you're going to increase regulations all over the place. by the way, my tax cut is the biggest since ronald reagan. i'm very proud of it. it will create tremendous numbers of new jobs, but regulations, you are going to regulate these businesses out of existence. when i go around,

lester, i tell you this, i've been all over, and when i go around, despite the tax cut, the things that businesses and people like the most is the fact that i'm cutting regulation. you have regulations on top of regulations, and new companies cannot form and old companies are going out of business and you want to increase the regulations and make them even worse. i'm going to cut regulations. i'm going to cut taxes big league and you're going to raise taxes big league. end of story. >> let me get you to pause right there. we're going to move into the next segment. we're going to talk -- >> that can't be left -- >> please, take 30 seconds. >> i kind of assumed that there would be a lot of these charges and claims and so -- >> facts. >> -- we have taken the home page of my website, hillaryclinton.com and turned it into a fact checker so if you want to see in realtime what the facts are, please go and take a look. because -- >> and take a look at mine also and you'll

see. >> will not add a penny to the debt and your plans would add $5 trillion to the debt. what i have proposed would cut regulations and streamline them for small businesses. what i have proposed would be paid for by raising taxes on the wealthy because they have made all the gains in the economy and i think it's time that the wealthy and corporations paid their fair share to support this country. >> you just opened the next segment. >> could i just finish that? i think i should. you go to her website and take a look at her website, she's going to raise taxes $1.3 trillion. >> mr. trump -- >> and look at her website. you know what, it's no different than this. she's telling us how to fight isis. go to her website. she tells you how to fight isis on her website. i don't think general douglas macarthur would like that too much. >> the next segment -- >> at least i have a plan to fight isis. >> no, no, you're telling the enemy everything i want to do. >> no, we're not. >> see, you telling

the enemy everything you want to do. no wonder you've, fighting -- no wonder you've been fighting isis your entire adult life. >> that's a -- go to the -- please, the fact checkers, get to work. >> you are unpacking a lot here. we're still on the issue of achieving prosperity. and i want to talk about taxes. the fundamental difference between the two of you concerns the wealthy. secretary clinton, you're calling for a tax increase on the wealthiest americans. i'd like you to further defend that. mr. trump, you're calling for tax cuts for the wealthy. i'd like you to defend that. the next two-minute answer goes to you, mr. trump. >> i'm calling for major jobs. the wealthy are going to create tremendous jobs. going to expand their companies, they're going to do a tremendous job. i'm getting rid of the interest provision and if you really look, it's not a tax -- it's really not a great thing for the wealthy. it's a great thing for middle class. it's a great thing for companies to expand. and when these people are going to put billions and billions of dollars into companies and when they're going to bring $2.5 trillion back

from overseas, where they can't bring the money back because politicians like secretary clinton won't allow them to bring the money back because the taxes are so onerous, and the bureaucratic red tape, so what -- is so bad. what they're doing is leaving our country and they're, believe it or not, leaving because taxes are too high and because some of them have lots of money outside of our country and instead of bringing it back and putting the money to work because they can't work out a deal to, and everybody agrees it should be brought back, instead of that, they're leaving our country to get their money because they can't bring their money back into our country because of bureaucratic red tape because they can't get together. because we have a president that can't sit them around a table and get them to approve something and here's the thing, republicans and democrats agree that this should be done. $2.5 trillion. i happen to think it's double that. probably $5 trillion that we can bring into our country, lester, and with a little leadership you'd get

it in here very quickly and it could be put to use on the inner cities and lots of other things and it would be beautiful but we have no leadership and honestly, that starts with secretary clinton. >> all right. you have is two minutes of the same question to defend tax increases on the wealthiest americans, secretary clinton. >> i have a feeling by the end of this evening i'm going to be blamed for everything that's ever happened. >> why not. >> why not, yeah. why not. you know, just join the debate by saying more crazy things. now -- >> hey, there's nothing crazy about not letting our companies bring their money back into their country. >> this is secretary clinton's two minutes, please. >> yes. >> well, let's start the clock again, lester. we've looked at your tax proposals. i don't see changes in the corporate tax rates or the kinds of proposals you're referring to that would cause the

repateuation. >> you didn't read it. >> i happen to support that in a way that will actually work to our benefit. but when i look at what you have proposed, you have what is called now the trump loophole because it would so advantage you and the business you do. you've proposed -- >> who gave it that name? the first ever -- who gave it that -- >> this is secretary clinton's -- >> $4 billion tax benefit for your family. and when you look at -- >> how much, how much? lester, how much? >> it s as i said, trumped up trickle down. trickle down did not work. it got us into the mess we were in 2008 and 2009. slashing taxes on the wealthy hasn't worked, and a lot of really smart wealthy people know that. and they are saying, hey, we need to do more to make the contributions we should be making to rebuild the middle class. i don't think top-down works in america. i think building the middle class, investing in the

middle class, making college debt free so more young people can get their education. helping people refinance their tax -- their debt from college at a lower rate. those are the kinds of things that will really boost the economy. broad-based inclusive growth is what we need in america. not more advantages for people at the very top. >> mr. trump -- >> typical politician. all talk, no action. sounds good, doesn't work. never going to happen. our country is suffering because people like secretary clinton have made such bad decisions in terms of our jobs, and in terms of what's going on. now, look, we have the worst revival of an economy since the great depression, and believe me, we're in a bubble right now and the only thing that looks good is the stock market, but if you raise interest rates even a little bit, that's going to come crashing down. we are in a big, fat, ugly bubble, and we

better be awfully careful and we have a fed that's doing political things. this janet yellen of the fed, the fed is doing political by keeping the interest rates at this level, and believe me, the day obama goes off and he leaves and goes out to the golf course for the rest of his life to play golf, when they raise interest rates, you're going to see some very bad things happen because the fed is not doing their job. the fed is being more political than secretary clinton. >> mr. trump, we're talking about the burden that americans have to fay, yet you have not released your tax returns and the reason nominees have released their returns for decades is so voters will know if their potential president owes money to, who he owes it to and any business conflicts. don't americans have a right to know if there are any conflicts of interest? >> i don't mind releasing. i'm under a routine audit. it will be released. as soon as the audit is finished, it will be released. you will learn more about donald trump by

going down to the federal elections where i filed a 104-page, essentially, financially sapen of sorts, forms they have. it shows income. the income, i just looked today, the income is filed at $694 million for this past year. $694 million. if you would have told me i was going to make that 15 or 20 years ago, i would have been very surprised. that's the kind of thinking our country needs. when we have a country that's going so badly, that's being ripped off by every single country in the world, it's the kind of thinking that our country needs because everybody -- lester, we have a trade deficit with all of the countries that we do business with of almost $800 billion a year. you know what that is? that means who's negotiating these trade deals? we have people that are political hacks negotiating our trade deals. >> the irs says an audit of your taxes -- you're perfectly free to release your taxes

during an audit. so the question, does the public's right to know outweigh your personal -- >> well, i told you, i will release them as soon as the audit -- look, i've been under audit almost for 15 years. i know a lot of wealthy people that have never been audited. i said, do you get audited? i get audited almost every year. and in a way, i should be complaining. i'm not even complaining. i don't mind it. it's almost become a way of life. i get audited by the irs. other people don't. i will say this. we have a situation in this country that has to be taken care of. i will release my tax returns against my lawyer's wishes. when she releases her 33,000 e-mails that have been deleted. as soon as she releases them, i will release -- i will release my tax returns and that's against, my lawyers they say don't do it. i will tell you this. in fact, watching shows, reading the papers, almost every lawyer says you don't

release your returns until the audit's complete. when the audit's complete, i'll do it but i would go against them if she releases her e-mails >> so it's negotiable? >> it's not negotiable, no, let her release -- why did she delete 33,000 -- >> i'll let her answer that. let me admonish the audience one more time. there was an agreement, we asked you to be silent. it would be helpful for us. secretary clinton? >> i think you've seen another example of bait and switch here. for 40 years, everyone running for president has released their tax returns. you can go and see nearly, i think, 39, 40 years of our tax returns, but everyone has done it. we know the irs has made clear there is no prohibition on releasing it when you're under audit. so you've got to ask yourself, why won't he release his tax returns? and i think there may be a couple of reasons. first, maybe he's not as rich as he says he is. second, maybe he's not as charitable as he claims to be. third, we don't know all of his business

dealings, but we have been told through investigative reporting that he owes about $650 million to wall street and foreign banks. or maybe he doesn't want the american people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes because the only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax. >> that makes me smart. >> if he's paid zero, that means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools or health, and i think probably he's not all that enthusiastic about having the rest of our country see what the real reasons are because it must be something really important, even terrible that he's trying to hide. and the financial disclosure statement, they don't give you the tax rate. they don't give you all the details that

tax returns would. and it just seems to me that this is something that the american people deserve to see and i have no reason to believe that he's ever going to release his tax returns because there's something he's hiding. andguessing at what it might be that he's hiding but i think the question is were he ever to get near the white house, what would be those conflicts? who does he owe money to? well, he owes you the answers to that. and he should provide them. >> he also -- he also raised the issue of your e-mails. you want to respond to that? >> i do. you know, i made a mistake using a private e-mail. >> that's for sure. >> and if i had to do it over again, i would obviously do it differently, but i'm not going to make any excuses. it was a mistake and i take responsibility for that. >> mr. trump? >> that was more than a mistake. that was done purposely. okay?

that was not a mistake. that was done purposely. when you have your staff taking the 5th amendment, taking the 5th so they're not prosecuted, when you have the man that set up the illegal server taking the 5th, i think it's disgraceful and believe me, this country thinks it's -- really thinks it's disgraceful also. as far as my tax returns, you don't learn that much from tax returns. that i can tell you. you learn a lot from financial disclosure. and you should go down and take a look at that. the other thing, i'm extremely underleveraged. the report that said $650 million which, by the way, a lot of friends of mine that know my business says boy, that's not a lot of money relative to what i had. the buildings that were in question, they said in the same report which was actually it wasn't even a bad story, to be honest with you, but the buildings are worth $3.9 billion. the $650 isn't even on that. it's not $66$650. it's much less than

that. i can give you a list of banks if that would help you. i can give you a list of banks, very fine institutions, very fine banks. i could do that very quickly. i'm very underleveraged. i have a great company. i have a tremendous income. the reason i say that is not in a bragedosious way. it's about time this country has somebody running it that has an idea about money. when we have $20 trillion in debt and our country's a mess, you know, it's one thing to have $20 trillion in debt and our roids are good and our bridges are good and everything's in great shape, our airports -- our arnt airports are like from a third-world country. you land at laguardia, land at kennedy, land at l.a.x., land at newark and come in from dubai and qatar, come in from china, you see these incredible airports and you land -- we've become a third-world country. so, the worst of all things has happened. we owe $20 trillion and we're a mess. we haven't even started. and we've spent $6

trillion in the middle east according to a report that i just saw. whether it's $6 trillion or $5 trillion, looks like it's $6 trillion. $6 trillion in the middle east, we could have rebuilt our countries twice. it's really a shame. it's politicians like secretary clinton that have caused this problem. our country has tremendous problems. we're a debtor nation. we're a serious debtor nation. and we have a country that needs new roads, new tunnels, new bridges, new airports, new schools, new hospitals. and we don't have the money because it's been squandered on so many of your ideas. >> let you respond -- >> maybe because you haven't paid any federal income tax for a lot of years and the other thing i think is important -- >> it would be squandered, too, believe me. >> -- is if your main claim to be president of the united states is your business, then i think we should talk about that. you know, your campaign manager said that you built a lot of businesses on the backs of little guys, and indeed, i have met

a lot of the people who were stiffed by you and your businesses, donald. i've met dishwashers, painters, architects, glass installers, marble installers, drapery installers like my dad was, who you refused to pay when they finished the work that you asked them to do. we have an architect in the audience who designed one of your clubhouses at one of your golf courses. it's a beautiful facility. it immediately was put to use. and you wouldn't pay what the man needed to be paid what he was charging you -- >> maybe he didn't do a good job and i was unsatisfied with his work which our country should do, too. >> the thousands of people that you have stiffed over the course of your business not deserve some kind of apology from someone who has taken their labor, taken the goods that

they produced and then refused to pay them? i can only say that i'm certainly relieved that my late father never did business with you. he provided a good middle class life for us, but the people he worked for, he expected the bargain to be kept on both sides. and when we talk about your business, you've taken business bankruptcy six times. there are a lot of great businesspeople that have never taken bankruptcy once. you call yourself the king of debt. you talk about leverage. you even at one time suggested that you would try to negotiate down the -- >> wrong. >> -- national debt of the united states. >> wrong. >> well, sometimes there's not a direct transfer of skills from business to government, but sometimes what happened in business would be really bad for government. >> let's let mr. trump -- >> we need to be very clear about that. >> i do think it's time. look, it's all words. it's all sound bites. i built an

unbelievable company. some of the greatest assets anywhere in the world, real estate assets anywhere in the world beyond the united states. in europe, lots of different places. it's an unbelievable company, but on occasion, four times, we used certain laws that are there and when secretary clinton talks about people that didn't get paid, first of all, they did get paid a lot, but taking advantage of the laws of the nation. now, if you want to change the laws, you've been there a long time, change the law. but i take advantage of the laws of the nation because i'm running a company, my obligation right now is to do well for myself, my family, my employees, for my companies and that's what i do. but what she doesn't say is that tens of thousands of people that are unbelievably happy and they love me. i'll give you an example. we're just opening up on pennsylvania avenue right next to the white house, so if i

don't get there one way, i'm going to get to pennsylvania avenue another. but we're opening the old post office. under budget, ahead of schedule. saved tremendous money. i'm a year ahead of schedule. and that's what this country should be doing. we build roads and they cost two, three, four times what they're supposed to cost. we buy products for our military and come at costs that are so far above what they're supposed to be because we don't have people that know what they're doing. when we look at the budget, the budget is bad to a large extent because we have people that have no idea as to what to do and how to buy. the trump international is way underbudget and way ahead of schedule and we should be able to do that for our country. >> we're well behind schedule, so i want to move to our next segment. we move into our next segment talking about america's direction. let's start by talking about race. a share of americans who say race relations are bad in this

country is the highest it's been in decades. much of it amplified by shootings of african-americans by police. as we've seen recently in charlotte and tulsa. race has been a big issue in this campaign, and one of you is going to have to bridge a very wide and bitter gap. so how do you heal the divide? secretary clinton, you get two mint minuute minutes on this. >> well, you're right. race remains a significant challenge in our country. unfortunately, race still determines too much. often determines where people live, determines what kind of education in their public schools they can get, and, yes, it determines how they're treated in the criminal justice system. we've just seen those two tragic examples in both tulsa and charlotte. and we've got to do several things at the same time. we have to restore trust between communities and the police. we have to work to

make sure that our police are using the best training, the best techniques, that they're well prepared to use force only when necessary. everyone should be respected by the law and everyone should respect the law. right now, that's not the case in a lot of our neighborhoods. so i have ever since the first day of my campaign called for criminal justice reform. i've laid out a platform that i think would begin to remedy some of the problems we have in the criminal justice system, but we also have to recognize in addition to the challenges that we face with policing, there are so many good, brave police officers who equally want reform. so we have to bring communities together in order to begin working on that as a mutual goal. and we've got to get guns out of the hands of people who should not have them.

the gun epidemic is the leading cause of death of young african-american men. more than the next nine causes put together. so we have to do two things as i said. we have to restore trust. we have to work with the police. we have to make sure they respect the communities and the communities respect them. and we have to tackle the plague of gun violence which is a big contributor to a lot of the problems that we're seeing today. >> all right, mr. trump, you have two minutes. how do you heal the divide? >> first of all, secretary clinton doesn't want to use a couple of words and that's law and order. we need law and order. if we don't have it, we're not going to have a country, and when i look at what's going on in charlotte, a city i love, a city where i have investments, when i look at what's going on throughout various parts of our country, whether it's -- i mean, i can just keep naming them all day long. we need law and order in our country and i just got today the, as you know, the

endorsement of the fraternal order of police. just came in. we have endorsements from, i think, almost every police group, very -- i mean, a large percentage of them in the united states. we have a situation where we have our inner cities, african-americans, hispanics, are living in hell because it's so dangerous. you walk down the street, you get shot. in chicago, they've had thousands of shootings, thousands since january 1st. thousands of shootings. i say, where is this? is this a war-torn country? what are we doing? and we have to stop the violence. we have to bring back law and order. in a place like chicago where thousands of people have been killed. thousands over the last number of years. in fact, almost 4,000 have been killed since barack obama became president. over -- almost 4,000

people in chicago have been killed. we have to bring back law and order. now, whether or not in a place like chicago you do stop and frisk, which worked very well, mayor giuliani is here, it worked very well in new york. it brought the crime rate way down, but you take the gun away from criminals that shouldn't be having it. we have gangs roaming the street and in many cases they're illegally here. illegal immigrants. and they have guns. and they shoot people. and we have to be very strong and we have to be very vigilant. we have to be -- we have to know what we're doing. right now, our police in many cases are afraid to do anything. we have to protect our inner cities because african-american communities are being decimated by crime. >> your two minutes has expired. i do want to follow-up. stop and frisk was ruled unconstitutional in new york because it largely singled out black and hispanic young men. >> no, you're wrong. it went before a judge

who was a very against police judge. it was taken away from her and our mayor, our new mayor, refused to go forward with the case. they would have wanted it repealed. if you look at it throughout the country, there are many places -- >> the argument is it's a form of racial profiling. >> no, the argument is we have to take the guns away from these people that have them and are bad people that shouldn't have them. these are felons. these are people that are bad people that shouldn't be -- when you have 3,000 shootings in chicago from january 1st, when you have 4,000 people killed in chicago by guns from the beginning of the presidency of barack obama, his hometown, you have to have stop and frisk. you need more police. you need a better community, you know, relation. u y you don't have good community relations in kmaug. it chicago. it's terrible. i have property there. it's terrible what's

going on in chicago. you go to ferguson, go to so many different places. you need better relationships. i agree with secretary clinton on this. you need better relationships between the communities and the police because in some cases it's not good. but you look at dallas, where the relationships were really studied. the relationships were really a beautiful thing. and then five police officers were killed. one night, very violently. so there's some bad things going on. some really bad things. >> secretary clinton -- >> but we need -- lester, we need law and order and we need law and order in the inner cities because the people that are most affected by what's happening are african-american and hispanic people. and it's very unfair to them what our politicians are allowing to happen. >> secretary clinton. >> well, i've heard -- i've heard donald say this at his rallies and it's really unfortunate that he paints such a dire

negative picture of black communities in our country. the vibrancy of the black church, the black businesses that employ so many people. the opportunities that so many families are working to provide for their kids. there's a lot that we should be proud of and we should be supporting and lifting up, but we do always have to make sure we keep people safe. there are the right ways of doing it and then there are ways that are ineffective. stop and frisk was found to be unconstitutional and in part because it was ineffective. it did not do what it needed to do. now, i believe in community policing and, in fact, violent crime is one-half of what it was in 1991. property crime is down 40%. we don't want to see it creep back up. we've had 25 years of very good cooperation,

but there were some problem, some unintended consequences. too many young african-american and latino men ended up in jail for nonviolent offenses and it's just a fact that if you're a young african-american man and you do the same thing as a young white man, you are more likely to be arrested, charged, convicted and incarcerated. so we've got to address the systemic racism in our criminal justice system. we cannot just say law and order. we have to say we -- we have to come forward with a plan that is going to divert people from the criminal justice system, deal with mandatory minimum sentences which have put too many people away for too long for doing too little. we need to have more second-chance programs. i'm glad that we're ending private prisons in the federal system. i want to see them ended in the state system. you shouldn't have a

profit motivation to fill prison cells with young americans. so there are some positive ways we can work on this, and i believe strongly that common sense gun safety measures would assist us. right now, and this is something donald has supported along with the gun lobby, right now we've got too many military-style weapons on the streets and a lot of places our police are out-gunned. we need comprehensive background checks and we need to keep guns out of the hands of those who will do harm and we finally need to pass a prohibition on anyone who's on the terrorist watchlist from being able to buy a gun in our country. if you're too dangerous to fly, you are too dangerous to buy a gun. so there are things we can do and we ought to do it in a bipartisan way. >> secretary clinton, last week you said we've got do everything possible to improve policing to go right at implicit bias. do you believe that

police are implicitly biased against black people? >> lester, i think implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just police. i think, unfortunately, too many of us in our great country jump to conclusions about each other, and, therefore, i think we need all of us to be asking hard questions about, you know, why am i feeling this way? but when it comes to policing, since it can have literally fatal consequences, i have said in my first budget we would put money into that budget to help us deal with implicit bias by retraining a lot of our police officers. i've met with a group of very distinguished, experienced police chiefs a few weeks ago. they admit it's an issue. they've got a lot of concerns. mental health is one of the biggest concerns because now police are having to handle a lot of really difficult mental health problems on the street. they want support. they want more training.

they want more assistance. and i think the federal government could be in a position where we would offer and provide that. >> i'd like to respond. >> please. >> first of all, i agree and a lot of people even within my own party want to give certain rights to people on watch lists and no-fly lists. i agree with you, when a person is on a watch list or no-fly list, and i have the endorsement of the nra, which i'm very proud of. these are very, very good people and they're protecting the 2nd amendment, but i think we have to look very strongly at no-fly lists and watch lists and when people are on there, even if they shouldn't be on there, we'll help them legally, we'll help them get off, but i tend to agree with that. quite strongly. i do want to bring up the fact that you were the one that brought up the word, superpredator, about young black youth. that's a term that i think was a -- it's been horribly met as you know. i think you've apologized for it. but i think it was a terrible thing to say. and when it comes to

stop and frisk, you're talking about taking gun away. i'm talking about taking guns away from gangs and people that use them and i really don't think you disagree with me on this, if you want to know the truth. i think maybe there's a political reason why you can't say it, but i really don't believe -- in new york city, stop and frisk, we had 2,200 murders and stop and frisk brought it down to 500 murders. 500 murders is a lot of murders. hard to believe. 500 is like supposed to be good? but we went from 2,200 to 500 and it was continued on by mayor bloomberg and it was terminated by current mayor. but stop and frisk had a tremendous impact on the safety of new york city, tremendous beyond belief. so when you say it has no impact, it really did. it had a very, very big impact. >> well, it's also fair to say, if we're going to talk about mayors, that under the current mayor, crime has continued to drop including murders. so there -- >> you're wrong. you're wrong. >> no, i'm not. >> murders are up. all right.

you check it. >> new york has -- >> you check it. >> -- done an excellent job. i give credit. i give credit across the board going back two mayors, two police chiefs, because it worked and other communities need to come together to do what will work as well. look, one murder is too many, but it -- >> true. >> -- is important that we learn about what has been effective and not go to things that sound good that really did not have the kind of impact that we would want. who disagrees with keeping neighborhoods safe? but let's also add no one should disagree about respecting the rights of young men who live in those neighborhoods. and so we need to do a better job of working, again, with the communities, faith communities, business communities, as well as the police to try to deal with this problem. >> this conversation is about race and so mr. trump, i have to

ask you -- >> i'd like to just respond if i might. >> please, 20 seconds. >> i'd like to respond. >> please respond then i have a follow-up question. >> look, the african-american community has been let down by our politicians. they talk good around election time like right now, and after the election, they say, see you later, i'll see you in four years. the african-american community -- look, the community within the inner cities has been so badly treated. they've been abused and used in order to get votes by democrat politicians because that's what it is. they control these communities for up to 100 years. >> mr. trump -- >> unbroken. and i will tell you, you look at the inner cities and i just left detroit and i just left philadelphia and i just -- you know, you've seen me. i've been all over the place. you decided to stay home and that's okay. but i will tell you, i've been all over and i've met some of the greatest people i'll ever meet within these communities. and they are very, very upset with what their politicians have told them and what

their politicians have done. >> mr. trump -- >> i think donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. and yes, i did. and you know what else i prepared for? i prepared to be president and i think that's a good thing. >> mr. trump, for five years, you perpetuated a false claim of the nation's first black president was not a natural born citizen. you questioned his legitimacy. the last couple of weeks you acknowledge what most americans have accepted for years, the president was born in the united states. can you tell us what took you so long? >> i'll tell you -- well, just very simple to say. sydney blumenthal works for the campaign and very close friend of secretary clinton. and her campaign manager, patti doyle, went to -- during the campaign, her campaign against president obama, fought very hard, and you can go look it up and you can check it out and if

you look at cnn this past week, patti doyle was on "wolf blitzer" saying that this happened. blumenthal sent mcclatchy, highly respected reporter, to kenya to find out about it. they were pressing it very hard. she failed to get the birth certificate. when i got involved, i didn't fail. i got him to give the birth certificate. so i'm satisfied with it. i'll tell you why i'm satisfied with it because i want to get on to defeating isis. i want to get on to creating jobs. i want to get on to having a strong border. because i want to get on to things that are very important to me and that are very important to the country. >> i'll let you respond. that's the point. i want to get the answer here. the birth certificate was produced in 2011. you continued to tell the story and question the president's legitimacy in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, as recently as january. the question is what

changed your mind? >> well, nobody was pressing it. nobody was caring much about it. i figured you'd ask the question tonight, of course. but nobody was caring much about it. but i was the one that got him to produce the birth certificate and i think i did a good job. secretary clinton also fought it, you know, everybody in the mainstream is going to say that's not true. sydney blumenthal sent the reporter -- take a look at cnn last week, the interview with your former campaign manager and she was involved. but just like she can't bring back jobs, she can't produce. >> i'm sorry, i'm going to -- i will let you respond to that. there's a lot there. we're talking about racial healing in this segment. what do you say to americans -- >> well, i was very -- i say nothing. i say nothing because i was able to get him to produce it. he should have produced it a long time before. i say nothing. but let me just tell you, when you talk about healing, i think that i developed very, very good relationships over the last little while with

the african-american community. i think you can see that. and i feel that they really wanted me to come to that conclusion and i think i did a great job and a great service not only for the country, but even for the president in getting him to produce his birth certificate. >> secretary clinton. >> well, just listen to what you heard. and clearly as donald just admitted, he knew he was going to stand on this debate stage and lester holt was going to be asking us questions, so he tried to put the whole racist birther lie to bed. it can't be dismissed that easily. he has really started his political activity based on this racist lie that our first black president was not an american citizen. there was absolutely no evidence for it, but he persisted.

he persisted year after year because some of his supporters, people that he was trying to bring into his fold, apparently believed it or wanted to believe it. but remember, donald started his career back in 1973 being sued by the justice department for racial discrimination because he would not rent apartments in one of his developments to african-americans and he made sure that the people who worked for him understood that was the policy. he actually was sued twice by the justice department. so he has a long record of engaging in racist behavior. and the birther lie was a very hurtful one. you know, barack obama is a man of great dignity and i could tell how much it bothered him and annoyed him that this was being touted and

used against him, but i like to remember what michelle obama said in her amazing speech at our democratic national convention. "when they go low, we go high." and barack obama went high despite donald trump's best efforts to bring him down. >> mr. trump, you can respond then we're going to move to the next segment. >> i would love to respond. first of all i got to watch in preparing for this some of your debate against barack obama. you treated him with terrible disrespect and i watched the way you talk now about how lovely everything is and how wonderful you are. doesn't work that way. you were after him. you were trying to -- you even sent out, your campaign sent out pictures of him in a certain garb. very famous pictures. i don't think you can deny that. but just last week your campaign manager said it was true. so when you try to act holier than thou, it really doesn't work. it really doesn't. now, as far as the lawsuit, yes, when i was very young, i went

into my father's company, real estate company in brooklyn and queens and we along with many, many other companies throughout the country, a federal lawsuit, were sued. we settled the suit with zero, with no admission of guilt. it was very easy to do, but they sued many people. i notice you bring that up a lot, and, you know, i also notice the very nasty commercials that you do on me and so many different ways which i don't do on you. maybe i'm trying to save the money. but frankly, i look -- i look at that and i say, isn't that amazing, because i settled that lawsuit with no admission of guilt. but that was a lawsuit brought against many real estate firms and it's just one of those things. i'll go one step further. in palm beach, florida, tough community, a brilliant community, a wealthy community, probably the wealthiest community there is in the world, i opened a club and really got great credit for it. no discrimination

against african-americans, against muslims, against anybody. and it's a tremendously successful club and i'm so glad i did it and i have been given great credit for what i did and i'm very, very proud of it. and that's the way i feel. that is the true way i feel. >> our next segment is called securing america. we want to start with a 21st century war happening every day in this country. our institutions are under cyber attack. and our secrets are being stolen. so my question is, who's behind it and how do we fight it? secretary clinton, this answer goes to you. >> well, i think cyber security, cyber warfare, will be one of the biggest challenges facing the next president because clearly we're facing at this point two different kinds of adversaries. there are the independent hacking groups that do it mostly for commercial reasons to try to steal information that they then can use to

make money. but increasingly, we are seeing cyber attacks coming from states. organs of states. the most recent and troubling of these has been russia. there's no doubt now that russia has used cyber attacks against all kinds of organizations in our country and i am deeply concerned about this. i know donald's very praise worthy of vladimir putin, but putin is playing -- >> wong. >> playing a really tough long game here. one of the things he's done is to let loose cyber attackers to hack in to government files, to hack into personal files. hack into the democratic national committee. and we've recently have learned that this is one of their preferred methods of trying to wreak havoc and collect information. we need to make it very clear whether it's russia, china,

iran or anybody else, the united states has much greater capacity and we are not going to sit idly by and permit state actors to go after our information. our private sector information, or our public sector information. and we're going to have to make it clear that we don't want to use the kinds of tools that we have. we don't want to engage in a different kind of warfare. but we will defend the citizens of this country and the russians need to understand that. i think they've been treating it as almost a probing. how far will we go, how much will we do? that's why i was so shocked when donald publicly invited putin to hack into americans. that is just unacceptable. it's one of the reasons why 50 national security officials who served in republican information -- in administration -- >> your two minutes have expired.

>> -- have said donald is unfit to be the commander in chief. it's comments like that that really worry people who understand the threats that we face. >> mr. trump, you have two minutes on the same question. who's behind it and how do we fight it. >> yeah, i do want to say i was just endorsed, more are coming next week. it will be over 200 admirals, many of them are here, admirals and generals endorsed me to lead this country. that just happened and many more are coming. and i'm very proud of it. in addition, i was just endorsed by i.c.e. they never endorsed anybody before on immigration. i was just endorsed by i.c.e. i was just recently endorsed, 16,500 border patrol agents. so when secretary clinton talks about this, i mean, i'll take the admirals and i'll take the generals any day over the political hacks that i see that have led our country so brilliantly over the last ten years with their knowledge. okay? because look at the mess that we're in. look at the mess that we're in. as far as the cyber, i agree to parts of what secretary clinton

said. we should be better than anybody else and perhaps we're not. i don't think anybody knows it was russia that broke into the dnc. she's saying russia, russia, russia, but i don't -- maybe it was. it could be russia. could also be china. could also be lots of other people. also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds. okay? you don't know who broke into dnc, but what did we learn with dnc? we learned that bernie sanders was taken advantage of by your people. by debbie wasserman-schultz. look what happened to her. but bernie sanders was taken advantage of. now, whether that was russia, whether that was china, whether it was another country, we don't know because the truth is, under president obama, we lost control of things that we used to have control of. we came in with an internet, we came up with the internet. and i think secretary clinton and myself would agree very much when you look at what isis is doing with the internet, they're

beating us at our own game. isis. so we have to get very, very tough on cyber and cyber warfare. it is a huge problem. i have a son, he's 10 years old. he has computers. he is so good with these computers. it's unbelievable. the security aspect of cyber is very, very tough and maybe it's hardly doable, but i will say we are not doing the job we should be doing. that's true throughout our whole governmental society. we have so many things we have to do better, lester, and certainly cyber is one of them. >> secretary clinton? >> well, i think there are a number of issues that we should be addressing. i have put forth a plan to defeat isis. it does involve going after them online. i think we need to do much more with our tech companies to prevent isis and their operatives from being able to use the

internet to radic radicalize, even direct people in our country and europe and elsewhere, but we also have to intensify our air strikes against isis and eventually support our arab and kurdish partners to be able to actually take out isis in raqqah, in their claim of being a caliphate. we're making progress. our military is assisting in iraq and we're hoping that within the year, we'll be able to push isis out of iraq and then, you know, really squeeze them in syria. but we have to be cognizant of the fact that they've had foreign fighters coming to volunteer for them, foreign money, foreign weapons. so we have to make this the top priority and i would also do everything possible to take out their leadership. i was involved in a number of efforts to take out al qaeda leadership when i was secretary of state including, of course,

taking out bin laden. i think we need to go after baghdadi as well. make that one of our organizing principles because we've got to defeat isis and got to do everything we can to disrupt their propaganda efforts online. >> you mentioned isis and we think of isis certainly as over there, but there are american citizens who have been inspired to commit acts of terror on american soil. the latest incident, of course, the bombings we just saw in new york and new jersey. the knife attack at a mall in minnesota. and the last year, deadly attacks in san bernardino and orlando. i'll ask this to both of you. tell us specifically how you would prevent homegrown attacks by american citizens? mr. trump? >> first, i have to say one thing. very important. secretary clinton is talking about taking out isis. we will take out isis. well, president obama and secretary clinton created a vacuum the way they got out of iraq because they got out wrong. they shouldn't have been in. once they got in, the

way they got out was a disaster and isis was formed. she talks about taking them out. she's been doing it a long time. she's been trying to take them out for a long time. they wouldn't have even been formed if they left some troops behind like 10,000 or maybe something more than that. and then you wouldn't have had them. or as i've been saying for a long time, and i think you'll agree because i said it to you once, had we taken the oil, and we should have taken the oil, isis would not have been able to form either because the oil was their primary source of income and now they have the oil all over the place including the oil, a lot of the oil in libya which was another one of her disasters. >> secretary clinton. >> well, i hope the fact checkers are turning up the volume and really working hard. donald supported the invasion of iraq. >> wrong. >> that is absolutely -- >> wrong. >> -- proved over and over again. >> wrong. >> he actually advocated for the actions we took in libya.

and urged that gadhafi be taken out after actually doing some business with him one time. but the larger point, he says this constantly, is george w. bush made the agreement about when american troops would leave iraq. not barack obama. and the only way that american troops could have stayed in iraq is to get an agreement from the then-iraqi government that would have protected our troops and the iraqi government would not give that. but let's talk about the question you asked, lester. the question you asked is what do we do here in the united states? that's the most important part of this. how do we prevent attacks? how do we protect our people? and i think we've got to have an intelligence surge where we are looking for every scrap of information. i was so proud of law enforcement in new york, in minnesota, in new jersey. you know, they

responded so quickly, so professionally, to the attacks that occurred by rahami and they brought him down and we may find out more information because he is still alive, which may prove to be an intelligence benefit. so we've got to do everything we can to vacuum up intelligence from europe, from the middle east. that means we've got to work more closely with our allies. and that's something that donald has been very dismissive of. we're working with nato, the longest military alliance in the history of the world, to really turn our attention to terrorism. we're working with our friends in the middle east. many of which, as you know, are muslim majority nations. donald has consistently insulted muslims abroad. muslims at home. when we need to be cooperating with muslim nations and with the american muslim community. they're on the front lines. they can provide information to us that we might not get

anywhere else. they need to have close working cooperation with law enforcement in these communities. not be alienated and pushed away as some of donald's rhetoric, unfortunately, has led to. >> mr. -- >> well, i have to respond. >> please respond. >> the secretary said, very strongly, about working with -- we've been working with them for many years and we have the greatest mess anyone's ever seen. you look at the middle east. it's a total mess. under your direction to a large extent, but you look at the middle east. you started the iran deal. that's another beauty where you have a country that was ready to fall, i mean, it was doing so badly, they were choking on the sanctions and now they're going to be actually probably a major power at some point pretty soon the way they're going. but when you look at nato, i was asked on a major show, what do you think of nato? you have to understand, i'm a businessperson. i did really well, but i have common sense. and i said, well, i'll tell you, i haven't given lots of thought to nato, but two

things. number one, the 28 countries of nato, many of them aren't paying their fair share. number two, and that bothers me because we should be -- we're defending them. they should at least be paying us what they're supposed to be paying by treaty and contract. and number two, i said, and very strongly, nato could be obsolete because -- and i was very strong on this. it was actually covered very accurately in "the new york times" which is unusual for "the new york times" to be honest. but i said, they do not focus on terror. and i was very strong. and i said it numerous times and about four months ago, i read on the front page of the "wall street journal" that nato is opening up a major terror division and i think that's great. and i think we should get, because we pay approximately 73% of the cost of nato, it's a lot of money to protect other people. but i'm all for nato, but i said they have to focus on terror also. and they're going to do that. and that was, believe me, i'm not going to get credit for it but

that was largely because of what i was saying and my criticism of nato. i think we have to get nato to go into the middle east with us in addition to surrou surrounding nations and we have to knock the hell out of isis and we have to do it fast. when isis formed in this vacuum created by barack obama and secretary clinton, and believe me, you were the ones that took out the troops. not only that, you named the day. they couldn't believe it. they sat back probably and said -- >> lester, we covered this -- >> wait a minute. they said wait a minute, when they formed, this is something that never should have happened. it never should have happened. now you're talking about taking out isis. but you were there and you were secretary of state when it was a little infant. now it's in over 30 countries and you're going to stop them? i don't think so. >> mr. trump, with a lot of these are judgment questions. you had supported the war in iraq before the invasion. what makes your -- >> i did not support the war in iraq. >> 2002 -- >> that is a

mainstream media nonsense put out by her because she frankly i think the best person in her campaign is mainstream media. >> my question -- >> would you like to hear? i was against -- wait a minute. i was against the war in iraq. just so you put it out. >> the record shows otherwise. why -- >> the record does not show -- >> why is your judgment any -- >> the record shows that i'm right. when i did an interview with howard stern, very likely first time anyone's asked me that, i said, very likel li asked me that, i said, very likel ghtly, i don't know, maybe, who knows, essentially. i then did an interview with neil cavuto, talked about the economy is more important. i spoke to sean hannity, everybody refuses to call sean hannity. i had numerous conversations with sean hannity at fox and sean hannity said, and he called me the other day, and i spoke to him about it. he said, you were totally against the war. he was for the war. >> why is your judgment better -- >> that was before the war started. sean hannity said, very strongly, to me and other people, he's

willing to say, but nobody wants to call him. i was against the war. he said, you used to have fights with me because sean was in favor of the war. i understand that side also. not very much, because we should have never been there. but nobody calls sean hannity. then they did an article in a major magazine shortly after the war started i think in '04, but they did an article which had me totally against the war in iraq. and one of your compatriots said, you know, whether it was before or right after, trump was definite because if you read this article, there's no doubt. but if somebody, and i'll ask the press, if somebody would call up sean hannity, this was before the war started, he and i used to have arguments about the war. i said it's a terrible and a stupid thing. it's going to destabilize the middle east and that's exactly what it's done. >> my reference was what you had said in 2002. my question was -- >> you didn't hear what i said. >> why is your judgment any different than mrs. clinton's? >> i have much better

judgment than she does. there's no question about that. i also have a much better temperament than she has. you know? i have a much better -- she spent, let me tell you, she spent hundreds of millions of dollars on an advertising -- you know, they get madison avenue into a room, they put names -- oh, temperament, let's go after it. i think my strongest asset, maybe by far, is my temperament. i have a winning temperament. i know how to win. she does not -- >> secretary clinton? >> wait. the afl-cio the other day behind the blue screen, i don't know who you were talking to, secretary clinton, but you were totally out of control. i said, there's a person with a temperament that's got a problem. >> secretary clinton. >> whew. okay. let's talk about two important issues that were briefly mentioned by donald. first nato. you know, nato as a military alliance has something called

article 5 and basically it says this. an attack on one is an attack on all. and you know, the only time it's ever been invoked after 9/11 when the 28 nations of nato said that they would go to afghanistan with us to fight terrorism. something that they still are doing by our side. with respect to iran, when i became secretary of state, iran was weeks away from having enough nuclear material to form a bomb. they had mastered the nuclear fuel cycle under the bush administration. they had built covert facilities. they had stocked them with centrifuges that were whirling away. and we had sanctioned them. i voted for every sanction against iran when i was in the senate, but it wasn't enough. so i spent a year and a half putting together a coalition that included russia and china to impose the toughest sanctions

on iran. and we did drive them to the negotiating table and my successor, john kerry, and president obama got a deal that put a lid on iran's nuclear program. without firing a single shot. that's diplomacy. that's coalition building. that's working with other nations. the other day, i saw donald saying that there were some iranian sailors on a ship in the waters off of iran and they were taunting american sailors who were on a nearby ship. he said, you know, if they taunted our sailors, i'd blow them out of the water and start another war. that's -- >> that would not start a war. >> that's not judgment. that is not the right temperament to be commander in chief. to be taunted. and the worst part -- >> no, they were taunting us. >> -- i heard donald say has been about nuclear weapons. he has said repeatedly that he didn't care if

other nations got nuclear weapons, japan, south korea, even saudi arabia. it has been the policy of the united states. democrats and republicans to do everything we could to reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons. he even said, well, you know, if there were nuclear war in the east asia, well, you know, that's fine, you know. >> wrong. >> have a good time, folks. and, in fact, his cavalier attitude about nuclear weapons is so deeply troubling. that is the number-one threat we face in the world and it becomes particularly threatening if terrorists ever get their hands on any nuclear material. so a man who can be provoked by a tweet should not have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes as far as i think anyone with any sense about this should be concerned. >> getting a little bit old, i must say. >> it's a good one, though. well describes the problem. >> it's not an accurate one at all. it's not an accurate one. so i just want to give

a lot of thing, just to respond. i agree with her on one thing. the single greatest problem the world has is nuclear armament, nuclear weapons. not global warming like you think and your president thinks. nuclear is the single greatest threat. just to go down the list, we defend japan, we defend germany, we defend south korea, we defend saudi arabia, we defend countries. they do not pay us, but they should be paying us because we are providing tremendous service and losing a fortune. that's why we're losing -- we're losing -- we lose on everything. i say who makes the these -- we lose on everything. all i said that it's very possible that if they don't pay a fair share, because this isn't 40 years ago where we could do what we're doing. we can't defend japan, a a behemoth selling us cars by the millions.

>> we have to move on. >> they may have to defend themselves or help us out. we owe $20 trillion. they have to help us out. as far as the nuclear is concerned, i agree, it is the single greatest threat that this country has. >> which leads to my next question as we enter our last segment, on the subject of securing naerk. on nuclear weapons, president obama reportedly considered changing the nation's longstanding policy on first use. do you support the current policy? mr. trump, you have two minutes on that. >> i have to say, for what secretary clinton was saying about nuclear with russia, she's very cavalier in the way she talks about various countries but russia has been expanding. they have a much newer capability than we do. we have not been updating from the new standpoint. i looked the other night, i was seeing b52s, they're old enough that your father, your grandfather could be flying them. we are not -- we are not keeping up with other countries. i would like everybody to end it, just get rid of it, but i would

certainly not do first strike. i think that once the nuclear alternative happens, it's over. at the same time, we have to be prepared. i can't take anything off the table because you look at some of these countries, you look at north korea, we're doing nothing there. china should solve that problem for us. china should go into north korea. china is totally powerful as it relates to north korea. and by the way, another one powerful is the worst deal i think i've ever seen negotiated that you started is the iran deal. iran is one of their biggest trading partners. iran has power over north korea. and when they made that horrible deal with iran, they should have included the fact that they do something with respect to north korea and they should have done something with respect to yemen and all these other places. and when asked to secretary kerry, why didn't you do that, why didn't you add other things into the deal? one of the great giveaways of all-time,

of all-time, including $400 million in cash, nobody's ever seen that before, that turned out to be wrong. it was actually $1.7 billion in cash. obviously, i guess, for the hostages. it certainly looks that way. so you say to yourself, why didn't they make the right deal? this is one of the worst deals ever made by any country in history. the deal with iran will lead to nuclear problems. all they have to do is sit back ten years and they don't have to do much. >> your two minutes has expired. >> i met with bibi netanyahu the other day. believe me, he is not a happy camper. >> all right. mrs. clinton, secretary clinton, you have two minutes. >> let me start by saying words matter. words matter when you run for president and they really matter when you are president. and i want to reassure our allies in japan, in south korea, and elsewhere that we have mutual defense

treaties and we will honor them. it is essential that america's word be good and so i know that this campaign has caused some questioning and some worries on the part of many leaders across the globe. i've talked with a number of them, but i want to, on behalf of myself and i think on behalf of a majority of the american people, say that, you know, our word is good. it's also important that we look at the entire global situation. there's no doubt that we have other problems with iran, but personally, i'd rather deal with the other problems having put that lid on their nuclear program than still to be facing that. and donald never tells you what he would do. would he have started a war? would he have bombed iran? if he's going to criticize a deal that has been very successful in giving us access to iranian

facilities that we never had before, then he should tell us what his alternative would be, but it's like his plan to defeat isis. he says it's a secret plan, but the only secret is that he has no plan. so we need to be more precise in how we talk about these issues. people around the world follow our presidential campaigns so closely trying to get hints about what we will do. can they rely on us? are we going to lead the world with strength and in accordance with our values? that's what i intend to do. i intend to be a leader of our country that people can count on both here at home and around the world to make decisions that will further peace and prosperity, but also stand up to bullies whether they're abroad or at home. we cannot let those who would try to destabilize the world to interfere with

american interests and security. >> your two minutes -- >> given any opportunities at all. >> is expired. >> lester, one thing i'd like to say. >> very quickly. 20 seconds. >> i will go very quickly but i will tell you that hillary will tell you to go to her website and read all about how to defeat isis which she could have defeated by never having it get going in the first place. right now it's getting tougher and tougher to defe defeat them. they're in more and more places. >> mr. trump. >> it's a big problem. as far as japan is concerned, i want to help all of our allies. we're losing billions and billions of dollars. we cannot be the policemen of the world. wi we can not protect countries all over the world where they're not paying us what we need. >> we have a few final questions. >> she doesn't say that because she's got no business ability. we need heart, a lot of things. you have to have some basic ability. sadly, she doesn't have that. all of the things that she's talking about could have been taken care of during the

last ten years, let's say, while she had great power but they weren't taken care of. if she ever wins this race, they won't be taken care of. >> mr. trump, this year secretary clinton became the first woman nominated for president by a major party. earlier this month you said she doesn't have, "a presidential look." she's standing here right now. what did you mean by that? >> she doesn't have the look. she doesn't have the stamina. i said she doesn't have the stamina. and i don't believe she does have the stamina. to be president of this country, you need tremendous stamina. >> the quote was "i just don't think she has -- >> wait a minute. you asked me a question. did she ask me a question? you have to be able to negotiate on trade deals. you have to be able to negotiate -- that's right, with japan, with saudi arabia. i mean, can you imagine we're defending saudi arabia and with all of the money they have, we're defending them and they're not paying? all you have to do is speak to them. wait, you have so many different things you have to be able to do and i don't believe that hillary has the

stamina. >> let's let her respond. >> well, as soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a cease-fire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina. >> the world -- let me tell you. let me tell you. hillary has experience but it's bad experience. we have made so many bad deals during the last -- so she's got experience that i agree, but it's bad, bad experience. whether it's the iran deal that you're so in love with where we gave them $150 billion back. whether it's the iran deal, whether it's anything you -- you almost can't name a good deal. i agree, she's got experience, but it's bad experience. and this country can't

afford to have another four years of that kind of experience. >> we are at the -- we're at the final question -- >> well, one thing -- >> very quickly because we're at the final question. >> he tried to switch from looks to stamina, but this is a man who has called women pigs, slobs, and dogs and someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers. who has said -- >> i never said that. >> who have said women deserve equal pay unless they do as good a job as men. >> didn't say. >> and one of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest. he loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them. and he called this woman miss piggy. then he called her miss housekeeping because she was latina. donald, she has a name. >> where did you find this? where did you find this? >> her name is machado and has become a u.s.

citizen and you can bet she's going to vote this november. >> okay. good. let me just tell you -- >> mr. trump, ten seconds then we'll have the final question. >> you know, hillary is hitting me with tremendous commercials. some of it's said in entertainment, some of it said, somebody who's been very vicious to me, rosie o'donnell, i said very tough things to her and i think everybody would agree that she deserves it and nobody feels sorry for her. but you want to know the truth? i was going to say something -- >> please, very quick. >> -- extremely rough to hillary, to her family and i said to myself, i can't do it. i just can't do it. it's inappropriate. it's not nice. but she spent hundreds of millions of dollars on negative ads on me. many of which are absolutely untrue, they're untrue and misrepresentations. i will fell you this, lester. it's not nice and i don't -- i don't deserve that but it's certainly not a nice thing that she's done. it's hundreds of millions of ads and the only gratifying thing is i saw the

polls come in today and with all of that money, over $200 million is spent and i'm either winning or tied. >> one of you -- >> i spent practically nothing. >> one of you -- one of you will not win this election. so my final question to you tonight, are you willing to accept the outcome as the will of the voter? secretary clinton. >> well, i support our democracy, and sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but i certainly will support the outcome of this election. and i know donald's trying very hard to plant doubts about it, but i hope the people out there understand this election's really up to you. it's not about us so much as it is about you and your families and the kind of country and future you want. so i sure hope you will get out and vote as though your future depended on it because i think it does. >> mr. trump, very quickly. the same question. will you accept the outcome as the will of the voters? >> i want to make america great again. we are a nation that is seriously troubled.

we're losing our jobs. people are pouring in to our country. the other day we were deporting 800 people. perhaps they pressed the wrong button. they pressed the wrong button. or perhaps worse than that, it was corruption. but these people that we were going to deport, for good reason, ended up becoming citizens. ended up becoming citizens. and it was 800 and now it turns out it might be 1,800 and they don't even know. >> will you accept the outcome of the zpl election? >> i want to make america great again. i'm going to be able to do it. i don't believe hillary will. the answer is if she wins, i will absolutely support her. >> all right. that is going to do it for us. that concludes our debate for this evening. a spirited one. we covered a lot of ground. not everything. as i suspected we wouldn't. would. the next presidential debates are scheduled for october 9th in washington university in st. louis. and october 19th at the university of nevada las vegas. the conversation will continue. a reminder the vice presidential debate is scheduled for october

4th at longwood university in farmville, virginia. my thanks to hillary clinton and to donald trump. and to hofstra university for hosting us tonight. good night, everyone. >> first presidential debate of this campaign season is in the record books. hillary clinton, donald trump taking questions for over 90 minutes. went a little bit long. and we see them now shaking hands with the mod raerator lester holt and expect them to greet their families as is tradition on these nights. chuck todd, i'll turn to you first. what did we witness tonight? do you think either candidate moved the needle in their directions? >> before i want to talk about the candidates, this most an nationbnormal event i've ever witnessed. not a normal political debate. let's not sit here and pretend we saw something that was a quadrennial occasion here. this was as surreal as some thought it might be. it was clear both

candidates didn't lie to us about how they prepared for this debate. hillary clinton was at times even, you could argue overprepared in her opening statement must have had 15 policy proposals within that two minutes. and that was donald trump who we've all come to cover on this campaign. that was the same donald trump. very reactive. he was filled with emotion. he had a couple of decent moments at the top. but there were times where i didn't understand the point he was making. i have to say, this was, i think as this night wore on, became tougher and tougher for trump and it exposed his lack of preparation. >> tom brokaw, win, lose or draw? >> well, i think it's settled on points. it was not a knockout evening and people are going to be at home adding up the points. and i think that hillary's composure and mastery of the detail was consistent throughout and she was pleasant throughout. even when she turned to donald trump. donald trump started in a more organized fashion than we've seen in thst